Eastern Sri Lanka

Oh yeah, If your actually reading all of these, good work since I lost my camera I’ve started writing a crap load, it’s as much for me as you guys, but I hope you enjoy.
I had made plans to head east, and set my sights for Arugam Bay on the east coast, John and Scott’s Lonely Planet advised it’s a chilled out surfie town. The whole east and south coast was very badly affected by the Tsunami, and it was a few months past the surfing season, so I wasn’t that sure what to expect. I caught a 2 pm mini bus east and after a bit of a breakdown and a roadside bearing change we made it after dark to Ampara. I was lucky enough to make it just before the next bus left, and with lots of pointing at the map and broken English, caught another bus south to Siyarnbalanduwa. I had some pretty funny conversations with the guys on the bus, they were all pretty friendly, the bus was continuing on to Colombo. At Siyarnbalanduwa, we stopped for some food I grabbed some curry and roti, and when looking for the dunny bumped into the guys I had been talking to, out the back having a sneaky spliff in the back room. I joined in, and wandered out a few minutes later fairly red eyed looking to be pointed in the direction of the closest guest house.
Not quite going to plan, a guy (whose name I’ve forgotten and will now on refer to as Whatshisname) from Pottuvil (the town just near Arugam Bay) offered his services as a taxi in his vegie delivery truck. Over some broken English and a bit more pointing, I accepted and jumped in his truck, his 2 buddies Osama and Assif also piled in and my bag was chucked in the back.  As we started heading down the shoddy dirt track in the dark, I firstly realised I had left my bottle of water on the restaurant table and had the dries like a mofo. The check points were pretty regular, and proper army turret style. The check points consisted of a chicane to slow the traffic, a big pile of sandbags with a few pairs of eyes and a machine gun or 2 peering out through a hole. With introductions underway Osama informed me his last name was Bin Laden, and laughing saying how famous he is. Whatshisname kept repeating “I am legitimate businessman” but at one stage did mention the heroin trade, he even did a little “chasing the dragon” action with his hands to indicate the consumption method of smack around here. To make things worse he kept calling his house his bed, and when he meant to say I am tired and want to go home, with his bad pronunciation he kept saying “I am very bad, very bad” it didn’t fill me with confidence. All the checkpoints just looked at us as we slowed down and let us through, Osama bought it to my attention “ooooh lots check point, but no checking, ‘cos I am Osama Bin Laden, very famous.” Cue the hysterical laughter from Assif and Whatshisname as we bumpily headed down a dark dirt track in far eastern Sri Lanka totally deserted apart from military checkpoints. Cue the stoned paranoia from me.
Whatshisname (who spoke the better broken English fro the trio) was saying “soon elephant, elephant 10 kilometres, 4 kilometres” and low and behold in about 4k’s Whatshisname slammed on the breaks ‘cos there was fucking great big elephant and its baby standing in the middle of the road. We flicked our lights a bit, Osama jumped out with the torch and did a little dance waving the torch at the elephant. After about 10 minutes they both wandered off into the bushes. Over the next 20 minutes I think I saw about a dozen elephants by the side of the road, it was super super cool.
We arrived an hour or so later, dropped Osama off at his place, and arrived at Whatshisname place where he honked and honked until Jasmine, his wife woke up, got out of bed and opened the gates for us. We had quick introductions, Jasmine headed off to the kitchen to make us cups of tea, and fixed me and Assif’s beds.
A few days before I had realised hat I had gone a few days and not actually spoken to a female, I had asked for directions and they pointed and nodded, I had bought things they handed me change, smiled an nodded,  but no actual conversation. I really don’t think female rights are that high on the political agenda in Sri Lanka. After a fairly long and arduous journey and very tired I crashed out on their spare bed, so damn tired I had to pause and try to work out if my cup of tea had been drugged and I was gonna wake up minus my iPod, laptop, credit cards, cash, passport and a few essential organs. I opened my eyes nice and wide counted 1 through 10, and then back down to 1 was pretty sure I was feeling ok then fell into a deep slumber within a minute or 2.

Will Cowan.